Category Archives: Biblical Studies

Every year, at the end of the year, I post the list of books that I read during the year. This year you will notice, the number has dropped down even more from the year before. This is mainly because I’ve been focused on other things. Also you will notice there were a lot of books read on atonement, prayer, and theological Anthropology. These are all related to my schoolwork and research. Finally, all of these are only the books I read to completion.

Meme’s and infographics are today’s preferred choice of communication for a lot of people – Millennials I’m looking at you…(and myself).

For those of you who don’t know, infographics are “graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly” (Thanks Wikipedia)

So for example, here is a cool infographic about coffee:

Infographics have also been used to communicate theological concepts. Here’s one on the Fruit of the Spirit:

TheologyGrams

This year, Rich Wyld (such a cool name!), an Anglican priest educated at Durham, turned his blog into a short book titled: Theologygrams: Theology Explained in Diagrams.

The book is pretty simple and straightforward. It uses diagrams to offer a more visual way of thinking about theological topics. He moves from the OT to the NT and then deals with practical issues in the life of the church. He concludes with a chapter on theology.

The chapters include some really interesting topics. In the OT chapter we get “Jonah’s Mood-O-Meter” and its pretty funny. The NT chapter gives us a very helpful diagram on “Resurrection Appearances.” Also, a hilarious graph on Paul’s defense in 2 Corinthians 11. I’m definetly showing this one to my class at Eternity Bible College. His Theology chapter has a diagram on the Trinity – and guess what: Its not incorrect!

This is a really fun book to flip through. It would make a really cool stocking stuffer for theology nerds. It would also make a cool coffee table book for theology nerds. Also… if you are a nerd and into infographics and like theology you are going to like this. Also, if you are into nerdy puns or nerdy cultural references you are going to be into this book. Basically, if you are a theology nerd get this book. And if you aren’t a theology nerd, but know a theology nerd get them this book. *Enough Said*

In recent years a number of scholars have increasingly pointed out the relationship between participating in Christ’s death and changing sinners’ status before God. Two passages that are especially relevant to this conversation are Galatians 2:15-21 and Romans 6-7. What’s unique about both of these passages is their use of the term, “systauroo” or “co-crucify.” Gorman explains, “the restoration to right covenant relations is therefore an experience of death and resurrection, or resurrection via death.” (Inhabiting, 63) According to Gorman we are co-crucified and co-resurrected with Christ. In Romans 6, one gets “into Christ” by baptism. Justification requires death to the law, there is co-crucifixion, and resurrection to new life. All of this is participatory. And it results in our justification.

Cranfield makes a similar point. In writing of Romans 6:1-14, He argues that there are four different senses in which we may speak of dying with Christ and being raised with him. These four senses are: juridicial, baptismal, moral, eschatological. Regarding the first point Cranfield says that “God willed to see them as having died in Christ’s death and having been raised in his resurrection.” Constantine Campbell explains,

By speaking of dying and rising with Christ, Paul appears to be delving into the mechanics of how the gift of God in Jesus Christ has overturned the juridical implications of sin and death. The logic appears as follows. The consequence of sin is death, judgement, and condemnation. By dying a representative death for sinful humanity, Christ fulfilled the legal requirement for sin. Once this legal requirement had been satisfied by death, the new life of Chris is no longer bound by sin or the juridical consequences it entail. The way in which the benefits of Christ’s representative death are apprehended is by identification with him in his death. This is where participation and representation come together: Believers spiritually partake in the death and resurrection of Christ, who has represented them in these acts…. The reason that believes have been set free from the condemnation of the law and death is that the righteous requirements of the law have been met through their dying and rising with Christ. (Campbell, 337)

Tannehill, however, makes a stronger point. He says that the death and resurrection of Christ are events in which the believer herself participates. New life “is based upon personal participation in these saving events.” (Tannehill, 1) The person is actually included in Christ. This is no mere legal representation. Believers somehow actually die with Christ and are raised with Christ.

As I mentioned before on this blog, I recently spent some time in Jerusalem for a Jewish philosophical theology workshop. In light of my time there, I decided to write a few blog posts for Fuller Seminary’s Analytic Theology Blog. Below you will find the links to various blogs, including a blog where I interact with Billy Abraham and a blog where I try to draw some connections between Yoram Hazony’s account of “Truth” and Wolfhart Pannenberg’s account. ENJOY!

At the end of each the year I put out the list of books I have read that year. Usually they consist of a lot of theology books, followed up by a good chunk of philosophy books, and a few fiction books thrown in. In 2013 I read 106 books. In 2014 I read 87 books. In 2015 I read 88 books. This year, my numbers went down drastically. However, that was mainly because I was in school again, reading lots of journals and book chapters, and writing a whole bunch. The numbers also dropped because I stopped reading at the gym. My workouts sort of changed (became more intense) so I no longer read while doing cardio. Anyway, this year’s total is 52 book. That’s one per week!

Books Read in 2016 = 52!

January

Systematic Theology Volume 1 – Wolfhart Pannenberg

Experiences in Theology – Jurgen Moltmann

The Nature of Doctrine – George Lindbeck

The Nature of Confession – Phillips & Okholm

February

Beyond Foundationalism – Grenz & Francke

The Drama of Doctrine – Kevin Vanhoozer

Black Theology of Liberation – James Cone

Models of God – Sally McFague

Introducing Radical Orthodoxy – James K.A. Smith

March

Analytic Theology – Crisp & Rae

An Invitation to Analytic Christian Theology – Thomas McCall

Four Views on Hell – Preston Sprinkle

Strong and Weak – Andy Crouch

The Problem of Hell – Jonathan Kvanvig

Hell: The Logic of Damnation – Jerry Walls

April

Gaining by Losing – J.D. Greear

The Unfolding Mystery – Edmund Clowney

Jonathan Edwards Among the Theologians – Oliver Crisp

Sacrifice and Atonement – Stephen Finlan

May

Knowledge and Christian Belief – Alvin Plantinga

Living on the Devil’s Doorstep – Floyd McClung

How I Changed My Mind About Evolution – Stump and Applegate

The Trinity Among the Nations: The Doctrine of God in the Majority World – Gene Green, Stephen Pardue, K.K. Yeo

That’s the Garwood Anderson’s thesis in Paul’s New Perspective. In this long (+400 page) but very readable book Anderson argues against those advocates of The New Perspective on Paul and those of the Traditional Protestant Perspective (sometimes called the Lutheran view) showing that neither camp really gets Paul right. Paul cannot be understood simply from the NPP nor can he be understood simply from the TPP, rather what we see in Paul is development. Paul begins with the concerns brought up by NPP advocates and by the end of his career ends with concerns of the TPP.

Summary

Paul’s developing soteriology is supposedly seen in his development from concentration on “works of the law” to works more generally. Anderson argues that Romans, is a sort of transitional letter marking the shift between Paul’s old perspective and Paul’s new perspective. In Romans we see the transition between “the largely horizontal crisis of Gentile covenant membership independent of the law to a more vertically oriented reconciliation to God gained by faith apart from works, works of any kind.” (13)

Never disparaging either the NPP or the TPP, Anderson argues that both positions get a lot about Paul right, and that both sides have helped the church understand something important about its relation to God and the world. Some figures, like Wright, get it more right than others. For instance Wright in PFG rightly describes Paul’s logic as going vertical to horizontal, however the emphasis in Wright’s work is horizontal to vertical. Similarly, Dunn has helped reveal the horizontal problems Paul was dealing with when it came to the law’s role in acting as a dividing role between Jews and Gentiles.

In order to establish the case that Paul’s “new perspective” is actually his “old perspective” and that the traditional perspective is actually Paul’s “new perspective” Anderson has to establish this chronologically from his letters. Anderson notes that this is a bit problematic, as the position he argues for is not the majority view of critical scholarship (its not idiosyncratic either).

Galatians is the Earliest Letter, dated around 49AD

Romans is dated around 56-58AD

The Thessalonian and Corinthian Correspondence fall between Galatians and Romans

Philippians was composed in Rome

Colossians, Ephesians and Philemon are authentic and written from Rome

Paul survived his Roman imprisonment, turned his attention east and wrote the Pastoral Letters.

Having established the provenance of these letters Anderson turns his attention to two topics Works/Grace and Justification/Salvation in light of his reestablished order of letters. From this new order he shows that with regards to works, his early topic of “works of the law” shifts to “works” (full stop) with Romans acting as a transition between these two positions. Grace also follows this pattern. Beginning with Romans, grace is opposed to and excludes works. Concerning justification/salvation, in his later letters Paul recedes from the language of justification and prefers to use language of salvation and reconciliation. These two sections are made up of indepth exegetical and lexical work.

Assessment
So how convincing is Anderson’s argument that the New Perspective is Paul’s is actually Paul’s old perspective? I guess that comes down to one important factor, how convincing do you think Anderson’s assessment of Paul’s literary itinerary is? Do you find it plausible that Galatians is Paul’s first letter? If you think Galatians & Romans are fairly closely dated that his argument doesn’t really work. Do you buy a Roman (as opposed to Ephesian) provenance of the Prison letters? If you don’t then that throws a wrench in his entire reading of Pauline development as well. The problem with Anderson’s propsal is that you have to hold to a lot of minority positions regarding the composition of these letters. Neither the NPP or the TPP hangs upon one’s acceptance of a particular dating of Paul’s letters, but Andersons’ thesis certainly does. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Anderson’s explanation is wrong. In fact, I would argue that it has a lot going for it! It breaks down some of the false dichotomies of the NPP/TPP debate, allows the church to incorporate the best of both perspectives, and has a lot of explanatory power. (His thesis even helps explain some of the concerns brought up by Apocalyptic readings of Paul!) But the fact that his whole argument is built upon the foundation of dates makes his foundation rather feeble. If one can decisively show his dating of Paul’s letters are wrong, his argument (in my opinion) falls apart.

All in all I would say that Paul’s New Perspective is a well written and well researched book, offering a via media in a rather creative way. Students of Pauline theology would do well to pick up this book, he does a fine job charging the various debates between NPP & TPP camps. His chapter on Post-NPP authors is fine as well. I can see myself assigning these chapters to students in a Pauline theology book, helping them get acquainted with contemporary debates in the Pauline literature. On top of all this, the summary of his position is rhetorically powerful, much like EP Sanders’ was: “covenantal nomism,” “getting in vs. staying in,” “solution to plight,” and “in short, this is what Paul finds wrong in Judaism: it is not Christianity.” Anderson’s position is quite memorable as well: “Paul’s New Perspective is Paul’s old perspective.” This catchy statement alone ensures the ideas in this book will be remembered, regardless of their staying power.

While I’m still not sure that Anderson’s proposal is convincing, it certainly is thought provoking. For that reason, I recommend you pick up this book. Its an position that deserves more thought and attention.

(Note: I received this book from IVP in exchange for an impartial review)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that the Christ hymn in Philippians 2 is the pattern for Christian life. Obviously Michael Gorman has much to say about this, but I came cross Morna Hooker’s analysis of this poem, and I was struck by how programatic it is for Paul.

The pattern of Christ’s self-humiliation is the basis of the Christian’s life and his dealings with his fellow men. This is not simply a question of following a good example: he must think and behave like this, because the behavior of Christ is the ground of his redemption; if he denies the relevance of Christ’s actions to his own, then he is denying his very existence in Christ.

The “imitate this pattern because you are in Christ” paradigm came even more vividly alive for me when I read Philippians 3:17 this morning:

Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take not of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.